


colours of love

by erysimumchen (jirml)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Any is any but not annie, But also not a not happy ending, Jongdae’s Birthday Week 2020, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Out of Order, Soulmates, You only see B&W until you meet your soulmate, angst? angst, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:53:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26551651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jirml/pseuds/erysimumchen
Summary: Jongdae remembers yellow, then he remembers white.
Relationships: Kim Jongdae | Chen/Any
Comments: 9
Kudos: 20
Collections: Challenge #7 — Out of Order





	colours of love

**Author's Note:**

> soulmate au where you don’t see colours until you meet your soulmate and reverts back to b&w if they die or something ionno
> 
> ♥ 09.21.92 ♥ hbd jd ♥

❀

“Hey Jongdae, could you pass me a green highlighter?”

Jongdae turns to his cubicle neighbour, confusion marring his face. But instead of correcting her, he goes along with the request, “Sure.” Screw his excessive politeness.

And so he looks at his desk. At the array of pen holders and stationary in front of him. At the shades of grey.

_Green._

_Green._

**_Green._ **

_Green shouldn’t be that hard right?_

“Umm?”

_Highlighter, so it should be bright._

“Jongdae?”

_Light grey?_

“Hello?”

_Why is she asking anyway? Don’t we have the same stationary? It’s too painfu-_

“Hey!”

He’s jolted out from his trance by a shove, and he turns around to see his colleague’s impatient face.

An apology dances on the tip of his tongue.

“Jeez, all I asked for was a highlighter. You blind or some–” Jongdae winces.

“Oh.”

The woman looks into his eyes and the petulance on her face is replaced by embarrassment, _guilt_.

“Sorry. I didn’t– I just assumed– Umm, at this age, usually–”

Jongdae stares at her, and an unsettling feeling overcomes her from Jongdae’s vacant eyes. Vacant; like the world he sees.

Jongdae can’t find it in him to say it’s okay. Not when her guilt is too quick to morph into a judgemental curiosity.

“Did they, uhh, pass away? Or... you just haven’t found them yet?”

Jongdae wonders why people feel entitled to know about these matters.

“Oh, umm, I haven’t found them yet.” He grits through his teeth, unwilling to lay bare.

She tries to hide her pity, Jongdae will give her that. But when you see no colour, you look at things so much more closely, and Jongdae’s too well-accustomed to doing so.

“Oh, I see. My bad then. You ever tried to?”

_A dumb question. Who hasn’t tried to find their soulmate?_

“Yeah, I did.” Jongdae gives her a feigned smile, tone final, as he goes back to work.

She finally remembers boundaries, and backtracks to her own cubicle, but not before leaving another thoughtless comment, “Oh, well, chin up. You’ll find them someday.”

Jongdae wants to get mad. Lash out. But she leaves before he could. And he probably didn’t have it in him. Seriously, screw his excessive politeness.

_She didn’t even take the highlighter._

❀

He’s strolling by the park in the morning, avoiding going to work. Not when he hates the place. And the people. And his work. He hates it all.

Plus, he’s always preferred looking at nature. Wondering what green looked like. They were the grass, the trees, the leaves. What blue looked like. They were the sky, the sea, the buildings.

What flowers looked like.

He crouches down. _What this flower looked like._

It was small but plenty. Long strips for petals, with a round bud in the middle of it. What colour would it be? Pink, blue, purple, green?

“That’s a dandelion.”

He hears from behind him, the wind carrying the voice over, surrounding him. He looks back and suddenly he’s assaulted with a ray of colours all over him.

The man in front of him is in a similar state, but he’s quick to recover and looks down at Jongdae.

“And it’s a colour yellow.” _He_ smiles.

❀

From then on, Jongdae sees yellow.

It’s the colour of a food. Many foods. Cheese. Mango. Corn. Banana. How are they all yellow, yet taste so different?

_“I’ve always thought bananas would be pink. Could you imagine that? A pink banana?”_

And then he laughs like he’s never before, and _he_ laughs with him. And it sounds like _yellow_.

And _pink_. So bright, so soft.

It’s the colour of his socks. He never realised that. They looked so white before.

And _white_. It’s the same. But not the same. It’s the clouds, the milk, his teeth, _his_ teeth. It’s white, and bright. And when he sees how _bright_ is _bright_ , he realises he’s never really known _bright_.

And _blue_. It’s the skies. With _white_ clouds. White and blue and _brighter_.

And green is divine. It’s deep. Not dark. No, he’s seen dark in grey. This green was deep. The grass, trees, leaves, they were bright in the day. But in the evening, oh, they were _green_.

And there's purple, red, orange. Hah, orange was orange.

_“Do you think the person who discovered oranges had already met their soulmate? Or were they just extremely lucky?”_

They learn about the colour spectrum. Take a class on it, cause, why not? They learn about the mantis shrimp. How it sees more colours than any species could ever dream of seeing. And they wonder, how many, how _much_ more colours are there?

And for a long while, they wonder at colours together.

And when the seasons change, the colours change with them. It was summer when they met. The colours at their most vibrant. Then they watched them fall.

_“Mauve.”_

They giggled childishly at the pretentious way _he_ said it.

But Jongdae didn’t like how their dandelion withered to a sad grey.

Then winter came, and it was all too painfully familiar to when their world was dark and grey. 

But the pure white that fell from the sky was heavenly. And his pink, sock-covered feet intertwined with _his_ under the sheets warmed him even in the cool winter.

Their dandelion also turned white, and how interesting was that.

Then spring came, and they watched nature bloom. How life blossomed into colours. How beautiful. Almost more beautiful than the summer colours of when they met.

❀

But then he realised, colours could be sadder than the greys too.

Yellow was sour, it was lemons.

Pink was her ugly dress.

White were the flashes of anger.

He understood now how blue could be a mood.

And Green was lacklustre. It was decay.

And _he_ was white, blank.

❀

So Jongdae looks at his desk. At the greys they were. And he looks at the post-its he knew was yellow. But like their dandelion, he sees it as white.

❀

**Author's Note:**

> and scene. hope you enjoyed. tis was a beautiful goodbye. no one died just to be clear lol. or you can interpret it however you want. i tried my best with this out of order thing, and even if the events seamlessly blend together, they are out of order (at a bare minimum)
> 
> & happy birthday to my king. why do i always hurt you in my stories.
> 
> && ♥ thank you for reading! would love to hear from you guys <3 kudos & comment hehe tell me who you imagined _he_ to be
> 
> Gahahaha i’ll reveal who i thought of when writing after tiny sparks REVEALS (if anyone's curious) hehehe


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